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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27094669">Human Trials</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyhl/pseuds/Gyhl'>Gyhl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>7 Days to Die (Video Game), Kingsman (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blame my wife, Whumptober 2020, Zombies, here's an idea for it she tells me, technically Roxy and Ginger Ale are in this, well at least we know I won't write this crossover I tell her</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 03:40:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27094669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyhl/pseuds/Gyhl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Experiment </strong>| Whipped | Left for Dead<br/>“Take Me Instead” | <strong>“Run!”</strong> | Ritual Sacrifice</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950607</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Today's Special: Torture</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He started awake, his hand coming up to ward off whatever beating his step-father had in store for him. But there was no beating. Hell, there was no <em>room</em>. He sat up, the warm and dusty asphalt under his hands telling him this was no dream. It wouldn’t have been the worst problem in the world for him if he knew where he was, how he’d gotten there, why the last thing he remembered was going to the Black Prince with the lads, and… where his clothes went. All he had were his boxers (though… he didn’t think he’d ever seen this particular pair before before) and a <a href="https://images.plurk.com/1qp3ntsk6JcyraZzwSaM5e.png">note</a>.</p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Friend,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The wasteland can be an unforgiving place, I found you naked and left for dead with no supplies. It looks like you crossed the Duke in a bad way and you could use some help. Enclosed is a short guide to help you survive. If you complete it, we just might take in a new citizen. The White River Settlement: it’s real and it’s safe.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Peace be with you friend,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Noah</em>
</p>
<p>He <em>stared</em> at the note for the longest fuckin’ time. Wasteland? The Duke? White River? What the fuck was any of <em>that</em>? And why leave him on a road (that was clearly at least one winter out of repair) near a little town (and he could see how badly in disrepair the buildings were) with nothing but his fuckin’ boxers?</p>
<p>He looked down at the instructions left with the note. The first was detailed instructions on how to weave a fucking bedroll from grasses. He looked at the instructions and then at the little town. Even with how abandoned it looked from here (and he could be mistaken), there was bound to be <em>someone</em> there or a fucking blanket or some shit. He’d fuckin’ <em>weave</em> a <em>bedroll</em> another time.</p>
<p>He got to the building he’d seen from the road and just… stared at the rest. Doors and windows were boarded up. The ceiling of one house was mostly caved in. There were holes - massive, gaping holes - in the wall of one. There was a car that had driven halfway through the side of a diner. The car was rusted, and that worried him the most. Cos that was a current model car and it had <em>years</em> of rust on it.</p>
<p>He went to the closest house and knocked on the door… Could he still call it a door? It was barely attached to the wall and had holes in it. Fist-sized holes. He pushed the door open; it fell off entirely. He stepped inside and heard the floorboard <em>creak</em> under his feet and it made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He wasn’t sure <em>why</em> but he felt an intense need to be as quiet as possible. Over the years, he’d learned to trust that feeling, and he made as little noise as possible as he made his way to a bedroom.</p>
<p>He rummaged around, and discovered that he was clearly not the first person to come through this house. That or the occupants had taken what they could and fled. Neither reason put him at any ease. In what was left, he found a pair of jeans (a bit too big), a sweatshirt (a bit too small), and a moth-eaten bedroll. There was a mouldering backpack under the bedroll and he filled it up with what little food he could find in the house.</p>
<p>He found the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He stopped, closed the cabinet, and stared at the mirror. His hair was longer than it had been. Not <em>long</em>, really, but long<em>er</em>, the way someone with a decent job might wear it. Wasn’t no bruises on his face, neither. He pulled the sweatshirt off and gave himself a good lookover.</p>
<p>He’d put on a couple kilo, like as if he were eating proper meals and not just grabbing what he could, if he could. And he couldn’t see a bruise at all. And that meant he was away from Dean. He wouldn’t have just left his mum and the baby with Dean, so they had to be… wherever he’d been. Were they okay? Did this Duke hurt them because of whatever he did?</p>
<p>He winced internally. Someone who’d leave a person to die for crossing them wouldn’t have an issue hurting that person’s family. Fuck. If they’d been hurt… because of <em>him</em>. No, he wasn’t gonna think about that. He was just gonna start sweeping the neighborhood, going from building to building, and look for other people. Cos there had to be some.</p>
<p>~ * ~ * ~</p>
<p>From the control room, Poppy watched as the agent swept the town. He found the handgun and ammo she’d left for him. He still hadn’t followed his instructions but that was fine. He’d stumble on the ‘traders’ soon enough. How strange would he find it that the signs read ‘Traitor Joel’s’? Would he pass it off as someone being funny, someone not knowing the difference ala ‘they’re, their, there’? Or would some inkling of the memories she’d had suppressed make him realize what was happening?</p>
<p>She smiled slowly to herself and pushed the intercom. “Traitor Jen, are you in place?”</p>
<p>“Yes, ma’am,” came the young woman’s reply.</p>
<p>“Good. He’s not following orders - hardly surprising, really, these Kingsman don’t really <em>get</em> orders, do they? - but he’ll stumble on you soon enough.”</p>
<p>She shut the comm off. She took no small delight in denigrating Kingsman to the ‘traitor’. She knew ‘Jen’s’ real name - Roxy Morton / Agent Lancelot - just like she knew Rekt’s real name - Elizabeth Hurst / Agent Whiskey. She’d given them her normal tests of loyalty, including killing someone and having a burger after their golden tattoo. She’d never let on that she knew perfectly well that both agencies had sent someone to infiltrate her organization. Now, she just had to push her pair of captives together and see how well they followed the experiment, <em>and</em> how well the ‘traders’ followed their orders.</p>
<p>She pushed one of the buttons on the console in front of her, releasing the first wandering horde of zombies the agent would come across. If Tequila was anything to go by, Galahad would still have his Kingsman training intact. What would he make of that? Would he even survive the waves of the undead she sent after him? He and Tequila were just about two miles apart; would they manage to run into each other?</p>
<p>She watched as the first wave started toward the noise he was making, wondering if both agents would make it to the end. And if they both did, who would be left standing once they learned only one had any real chance of survival?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. For The Greater Good</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eggsy had run into Tequila a week ago, although he knew the other man as John. Because, as far as Tequila was concerned, his memories stopped before he’d become a Statesman. He’d been mid-training at the time, but that put his memory gap over a year before Eggsy’s own. And that bothered the both of them.</p>
<p>Because they’d found pieces of newspapers. There had been a nuclear explosion at some point. From what little of the paper wasn’t so distorted by… years?... of rain and fun that it couldn’t be read properly. So they couldn’t be certain but they had a feeling it wasn’t a reactor that had blown but an attack somewhere. There’s also been some massive pandemic. A flu virus no one seemed to be able to cure had burned through the world’s population like a wildfire. Given the images of people with said flu, Eggsy and John had come to the conclusion that the zombies were the ones who’d died from said flu.</p>
<p>After that, they’d both become very vigilant about taking the curative John had found a stash of. According to the label, it only worked in the early stages and it warned that after seven days, the virus would become lethal. So anytime a zombie cut them - or <em>bit</em> them, given the number of undead vultures, bears, boars, and wolves they came across - they each took a dose and they kept an eye out for more of the pills.</p>
<p>They’d also started taking jobs from the two traders they knew. They were mostly jobs to go to specific houses and clear them out of zombies (they assumed so other survivors could move in and have somewhere mostly safe to live) or to fetch something that a courier never managed to deliver. It had started out as a way to prove themselves to the White River people, but…</p>
<p>But then they’d learned that the settlement was only going to accept one of them. They’d decided to keep doing the jobs for the money but that they’d rather stick together instead of compete for one slot of safety and leave the other to his death.</p>
<p>Right now, they were on a mission from Rekt to go in and clear out a house. They’d gone in and swept the place with an ease that left both of them nervous. There’d only been two zombies, one of which was what they’d come to call a sleeper. It didn’t move until prey was close and then it leapt at it. Eggsy’d shot it from the doorway.</p>
<p>“We missed somethin’,” Eggsy hissed. They’d learned quickly that the zombies had excellent hearing and would move toward the least sound.</p>
<p>“Might could be a basement,” John whispered.</p>
<p>They went back to the ground floor and swept it again, this time looking for a way to get to a basement. It took them the better part of an hour - partially from searching more thoroughly and partially from trying to be as quiet as they could about it.</p>
<p>They went down the ladder into the basement, John going first and Eggsy following. Once they were down there, <em>then</em> they could hear the soft groans of the zombies. They moved as quietly as they could, trying to find the source of the sounds.</p>
<p>John realized where they were before Eggsy did. “Subbasement,” he mouthed.</p>
<p>Eggsy nodded and they both started looking for a way down. John saw it first and snapped his fingers. Eggsy turned and saw what he’d found. They started toward what looked like a trapdoor; they were halfway across the room when the floor gave out a low, loud groan. John motioned for Eggsy to stay where he was. <em>He</em> was already well inside of where the floor was suddenly sagging.</p>
<p>He moved slowly, keeping his steps as light and soft as he could. But then he heard the wood starting to snap and made a dash for the otherside, but he was too far away and too much of the floor gave out. The subbasement was deep and the fall knocked the wind out of him. </p>
<p>“John?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’m fine, just-” He’d been pushing himself up when he cut himself off. He let out a weak chuckle. “Found them.”</p>
<p>“Shit. Lemme get…” Eggsy looked around. He hadn’t seen anything that was ropelike. He heard a shot and his head snapped back to where John was.</p>
<p>“Ain’t gonna be able to get them all,” he said numbly. “Get out of here.”</p>
<p>Eggsy’s gun was in hand in a moment and he shot the one he could see. “Ain’t leavin’ you!”</p>
<p>“Gotta stop and reload-” he shot again and snapped his shotgun open, “-every other shot. I can see a good ten of them. Ain’t gonna be able to kill ‘em fast enough.”</p>
<p>“Fuck you,” he said.</p>
<p>He kept on firing even as the swarm of them advanced on John. He was peripherally aware that there were too fuckin’ many of them. Either the subbasement was just <em>that</em> full of them… or there was a way in there from the outside and the noise had attracted them.</p>
<p>“Get out of here,” John snapped as they began to surround him. He blew the head off of the one nearest to him. “They’re already startin’ to climb up on each other. Ain’t gonna be long before they come after you.” He looked up at Eggsy briefly. “Ain’t no sense in us both dyin’.” One of them grabbed him and he hit it with the butt of his gun. “Go to White River!”</p>
<p>And then the swarm was on him. Eggsy could see one of the zombie’s hands as it reached over the broken floor. He <em>hated</em> that the fuckers were smart enough to climb ladders and each other to get to food. He heard John’s first pained scream and he knew he <em>had</em> to leave him. He left, sprinting away from the house and the swarm that was sure to crawl out of the subbasement. </p>
<p>He slowed as he got out of their immediate range, and then slowed beyond that as he made his way to the trader’s building. They’d spent a week watching each other’s backs, sleeping in shifts - except on the night of the Blood Moon when the zombies had come in droves - and he’d felt… a certain closeness to the man that he’d never felt with anyone else. And then he hadn’t been able to save him. Just like - probably - his mum and sister.</p>
<p>~ * ~ * ~</p>
<p>She’d already passed the message on to Whiskey that Tequila had ‘died’ in the simulation. It was almost a shame that the agent was fully aware that it was a simulation and the agents had been, essentially, uploaded to it. Tequila was still, technically, inside the simulation; he was just… inactive.</p>
<p>She’d bring him out after she dealt with Galahad. And then… her little virus would be ready for actual human trials. The other three agents would be the perfect subjects, too.</p>
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